ISLAMABAD – American CIA caught spying on Pakistan’s secret nuclear missiledefence programme?
Wasim Akram an employ by the Islamabad-based National Engineering andScientific Commission (NESCOM), the agency responsible for developingPakistan’s missiles. Specifically turned into a trap by American CIA.
Akram was critical to the development of both Shaheen-II and Shaheen-IIIballistic missiles whose operational ranges are between 2,000 km and 2,750km.
Having honed his skills during the development of Shaheen-II, Akram becamethe team lead for Shaheen-III’s engine and motor development. His cover jobwas as a professor in the Pakistan Army’s Corps of Electrical andMechanical Engineering to avoid suspicion. Probably because of hiscentrality to the project, he was sent to the US on a trip.
Some sources claim it was an official posting for one of the internationalmilitary leadership networking/education programmes that the US Armyruns; others vehemently deny this.——————————*When Akram turned into a ‘US spy’*
What is not disputed, however, is that Akram thereafter regularly began totravel to New Mexico (where the two main US nuclear laboratories – Sandiaand Los Alamos – are located), presumably to collect information withoutworrying about getting caught given the University of New Mexico’sAlbuquerque campus has a nuclear reactor for students to experiment in.
However, it was in New Mexico that Akram discovered he had a gamblingaddiction and indulged in it quite frequently. What we do know is that hegot involved in some petty crime there; whether this had to do with hisgambling or something else is not known. Regardless, he did cross the lineof legality and was apprehended by the US law enforcement.
It is believed by Pakistan observers that this is when Akram was turnedinto becoming a US agent. The charge was apparently “minor” (we still donot know what exactly because the arrest wasn’t on the books); but it wasthe lure of money that turned him. On his return to Pakistan, he startedproviding a steady stream of information to the US. Specifically, he isknown to have provided details of the Shaheen family’s (nuclear) warheadmating mechanism to the US as well as the names of the nuclear agencyliaisons and the limited details he was given to design the missile.
The names allowed the US to pinpoint their intelligence efforts while thedesign details helped the Americans understand certain weights and dynamicsof Pakistani nuclear warheads – specifically how much its weight affectedthe maximum range of the missiles (for example, a 2,000-km rangemissile carrying its full payload will have its range reduced to half).This allowed the US intelligence agencies to chart the trajectory of futuredevelopments accurately (and compromise those in the process).
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Under normal circumstances, these acts of espionage would not have beendetected. However, two things went horribly wrong. The first was an attemptby the US to sabotage the Pakistani missile programme in the hope ofslowing it down. The second was the recklessness of Akram himself. TheShaheen-III had completed two successful tests in 2015.
Yet, in January 2016, when a routine test was conducted, it resulted in aspectacular failure (Pakistan does not announce failed tests). The inquiryfound a series of “mistakes” that should have been avoided had standardoperating procedures been followed.
Unsurprisingly, and unlike India, a security inquiry was immediatelyordered by Pakistan. Initially, the inquiry found nothing, but curiousdetails of Akram’s new house worth Rs 70 million (US$ 450,000)emerged. Akram had blundered by purchasing the house under his own name,unlike the standard practice of buying it under a family member’s name.However, even at this point, Akram’s espionage guilthad not been established, and he had only managed to raise a high suspicionof corruption.
The break came when the directed surveillance detected himcontacting Brigadier Raja Rizwan. In the retired officer’s case, too manythings began to fall in place — of his three kids, two (the elder son andone daughter) were in the United States, enrolled into on educationprogrammes they were clearly not cut out for, with suspicious out-of-turngreen card allotments.
This was enough to arrest Akram and, under torture, he divulged detailsand provided evidence of his communications with Brigadier Raja. Then, thelatter’s sustained torture revealed a pattern of passing information to theUS since his days in Berlin in 2012.
There is a lesson here for India – a robust security programme that doesnot spare even those at the top from suspicion is one of the most effectivecounter intelligence tools. Sadly, in India “service loyalty” and apervasive “VIP culture” often miss these vital clues. Equally revealing isthe fact that even though the official ISPR statementlink does not namethe agency this spy ring was linked to, The Print has reported.
